How many times can I say “China” in one post? (Logic) – Emma M

It’s 2012 and everyone is more focused on Gangam Style then our dear friend Donald Trump. However, that doesn’t stop him from vocalizing all thoughts and opinions on twitter, gracing us mere mortals with such high standards of thinking, including this tweet:

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

Yet, is any of this valid? Factually correct? Sound? Here is my attempt of breaking down this argument.

Premise 1: There is no evidence for Climate Change caused by humans.

Premise 2: China has fabricated and is perpetuating Climate Change.

Premise 3: Manufacturing goods is cheaper in China due to relaxed carbon laws.

Conclusion: / China created the Climate Change hoax to steal U.S. jobs.

Premise 1: Anthropogenic climate change is a very controversial topic. I trust in the group of people that believe that us humans are strongly contributing to climate change, and these people are backed by a number of scientists (97% in the field of climate change) and many scientific based programs (NASA) proving that we are contributing to climate change. So, it’s safe to say that this first premise is false.

Premise 2: There’s no evidence to truly support this premise. Any google search just leads me to the Trump tweet. That being said, I can’t assume that it’s true or if it’s false.

Conclusion: Like I said with premise #2, there’s no evidence to support this claim, therefore I cannot assume that it is true nor if it is false.

So, this argument is definitely not factually correct because of the lack of evidence in the second premise and the conclusion, and with that, I’ve ruled out that this argument is sound. Finally, is this argument even valid? No it is not. Possibly if there were only premise #1 and #2, then the argument has a slight chance of being valid (however that chance is very slim). Now, with the third premise added in, this argument stands no chance. Although the third premise is probably true, it does not coincide with the first two premises, and all three of them do not make a valid conclusion, especially the one that Trump has given us.

(I’ve said “China” and “The Chinese” so many times in this one post that I feel like Donald himself.)